Sunday, January 06, 2008

Choosing to be Gay

Does one choose to be gay? It's a fascinating question, and many people feel that a great deal rides on the answer. If homosexuality is a choice, they argue, it is permissible to restrict the civil rights of homosexuals, and to encourage homosexual (or 'pre-homosexual') teenagers and younger children to 'turn straight'. (Some of the methods used to achieve this end are quite nasty.) On the other hand, if homosexuality is 'hard wired', they should be nice to homosexuals.

James Dobson of Focus on the Family, in his book Bringing Up Boys, disagrees. He argues that the morality of homosexuality is not dependent on whether or not it's a choice. Dobson is a charlatan, and Bringing Up Boys is a collection of pseudoscientific nonsense (the chapters on 'pre-homosexuality' are, anyway), but on this issue he's right. Homosexuality does not harm. In certain circumstances, indeed, homosexual acts may even increase the sum total of human happiness. I can find no logical reason for labelling homosexuality as immoral; and this conclusion does not in any way depend on whether or not it's a 'choice'.

For the record, though, homosexuality is not a choice. Gayness, however, is.

Homosexuality is an orientation. You're homosexual if you're sexually attracted to persons of the same sex as yourself. Gayness is an attitude of mind. You're gay if you can say so, even to yourself, without wincing.

I found myself homosexual, and chose to be gay. The alternative was to be self-loathing. Some people (Ted Haggard* and Larry Craig spring to mind) seem to have taken that option.

* "There's a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life."